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Title: Pegvisomant Effective in Acromegaly Regardless of Response to Prior Therapy: Presented at ECE

"Pegvisomant Effective in Acromegaly Regardless of Response to Prior Therapy: Presented at ECE"

By Alison Palkhivala LYON, FRANCE -- April 29, 2003 -- Pegvisomant is an effective treatment for acromegaly, regardless of whether patients have been treated in the past or how they responded to previous therapy. Dr. Peter J. Trainer, from the department of endocrinology, Christie Hospital, Manchester, England, and colleagues investigated whether response to pegvisomant in patients with acromegaly can be predicted by previous response to other therapies. Results were presented in a poster here on April 29th at the 6th European Congress of Endocrinology. Pegvisomant is a pegylated analog of human growth hormone that acts as a competitive growth hormone receptor antagonist. The research was conducted in collaboration with Pharmacia Corporation, manufacturers of pegvisomant under the trade name Somavert®. One hundred and twelve patients with acromegaly had participated in a short- or long-term trial with pegvisomant. As part of a retrospective analysis of these patients, the investigators determined that, prior to participating in the trial, 22 patients had been drug naïve, 40 had been previously treated with medical therapy for acromegaly but were not on treatment immediately prior to receiving pegvisomant, 19 were octreotide responsive and 30 were octreotide resistant. Resistance to octreotide was defined as a failure of this agent to lower insulin like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) to an age-related reference range. Use of pegvisomant at a mean dose of 15.9 mg/day normalised IGF-1 for at least one visit in 91% of drug-naïve patients and 94% of previously treated patients. It also normalised IGF-1 for at least one visit in 89% of octreotide responsive patients and 97% of octreotide resistant patients. None of these values were significantly different from each other. Mean IGF-1 concentrations as well as sign/symptom scores of acromegaly were significantly reduced with pegvisomant therapy in all patient groups. Ring size was also reduced similarly in all four groups (P

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